


Rory's Guide to the Galaxy

by ermengarde



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-05
Updated: 2010-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-13 02:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ermengarde/pseuds/ermengarde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Fic_promptly prompt: <em>Doctor Who, Amy/Rory/Eleven, "Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen..."</em></p><p>Rory's been abandoned at an intergalatic jumble sale so he decides to go shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rory's Guide to the Galaxy

They're in some kind of gigantic jumble sale _thing_ and the Doctor's gone jaunting off to find a crystal that may be a battery (or a battery that may be a crystal, or possibly a toaster... the Doctor wasn't entirely clear, and Rory's not convinced he knows what it is he's looking for anyway... Although they've been travelling way too long for Rory to discount it being a crystal/battery/toaster combo) and Amy's skipped off, theoretically to look at the clothes, but really to follow the Doctor (Rory's given up being jealous over that, she'll come back to him, she always does and it's not really a competition anyway). So, anyway, Rory's just standing around in a corner, on his own, looking like a bit of a tool.

He is decidedly not a fan of looking like a tool, especially in strange jumble sales full of nosy old creatures who keep eyeing him up like he might be for sale. He is not for sale, not again. Especially when he's not sure who'd get the money for him.

He takes a deep breath and immediately decides that that was a really stupid idea and wonders if he'll ever get the smell out of his sinuses. The coughing attracts a lot of attention too, so he moves forwards into the mounds of broken stuff for sale and tries to behave like a serious buyer.

The Doctor's done something to the chip in Rory's visa card, so on the very slight off chance that he finds something he wants he can buy it (and he can try very hard not to think apocalyptic thoughts about destabilising an economy by bringing in external funds. He's never really understood economics beyond nurses salary = not enough for a mortgage, but years of doing horrible shifts has left him with way too many hours spent staring at BBC breakfast news and all the money gloom they spouted has wormed its way into his brain) he's fairly sure he's not going to find anything here, though, the stench is incredibly off putting.

He skirts round the clothes (he's developing his own classification system for levels of civilization, and he's definitely including the invention of Febreeze as a measure) and finds himself surrounded by stacks of computer chips and readers that are meant to be novels (he's never really wanted one of those, he'd be worried about dropping it in the bath) and, further in, some honest to God _books_. He can't help but touch them - the library on the TARDIS has apparently never recovered from the time the swimming pool ended up in there (neither has the swimming pool) and it's been months (he thinks) since he last read something more complicated than a wall sign. He's not going to buy many, they're too heavy to carry and this trip really isn't all that geared towards quiet reading time, but maybe just one, maybe something... his fingers run over the spines of the stacks of _well loved_ tomes and the TARDIS translates all the titles to English, but a lot of them just read _oddly_ and his enthusiasm wanes.

He's about to try and find his way back to the TARDIS (surely they have to be done by now?) when blocky yellow letters on a blue background catch his eye. _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. Perfect! Rory's spent a lot of their journey feeling like Arthur Dent, confused and on the edge of being annoyed with a smart arsed alien, in love with an impossibly smart woman who _gets_ it in way he probably won't ever do, and he really wishes he had a book with large friendly letters on the cover to make sense of some of the ridiculous things they see. Admittedly Arthur never had to deal with an impossibly big spaceship (mindbogglingly big; a _Vogon Battlecruiser_ 's just peanuts to the TARDIS) but the TARDIS does at least have tea.  
He really has no idea how much the blue-skinned woman behind the stall charged him for his book (the TARDIS translates the numbers but she doesn't give a sense of how much that _means_ ) but he doesn't really care, he's liberating some Earth memorabilia and taking it back to its rightful home (eventually) . He's so happy, in fact, that he bangs into four people (aliens, things.., urm, alien people) and nearly starts a galactic incident because he's too busy reading to pay proper attention to where he's walking.  
"Ah! Rory!" The Doctor grins at him as he opens the TARDIS door. "See Amy, he hasn't been turned into stew. " The Doctor looks him up and down. "You haven't, have you? Still got all your own legs and arms?"

Amy barrels into him and nearly knocks him flying. "I thought I told you not to go wandering off on your own! Anything could have happened to you!"

"Uh.." He opens and closes his mouth like a fish, "I didn't go off! You did, I just went shopping." He should probably be a bit more annoyed at his wife treating him like a toddler.

"Yes," the Doctor rubs his hands together. "Shopping, perfectly normal, safe activity. Did you buy anything good?"

"A book… Look, seriously," Rory pulls Amy's hands free of his jacket, she's grabbed on like a limpet. "I'm capable of looking after myself for twenty minutes you know."

Amy pouts at him, it's put on but it still has an effect on him. "I know, I just worry when I can't see you."

"Okay." He seriously needs to work out how she turned this into her needing soothed. "I'm here now, it's okay."

Amy grins back at him, warm and bright and pulls him towards their bedroom.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Rory's Guide to the Galaxy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/625680) by [ermengarde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ermengarde/pseuds/ermengarde)




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